I tried an experiment recently. Optimizing my character build by taking maximum benefit of learnable by doing skills. 90% of lbd skills are relatively straight forward, you use them and you learn them, just as the description says. Then there are the 10% that proven a little tricky.

Throwing-related skills, for example. Mastery of throwing is impossible to learn until you have a decent percentage of throwing first. Piercing hurl, shocking throw and vital points are third-tier skills, that require both throwing and mastery of throwing.

Other skills were even more elusive. I played a spider gaesati (piercing natural weapons) with shadowdancer secondary, as well as regular primary shadowdancer. Despite being lbd on paper, backstab just absolutely refused to improve. Shadow strike does improve, but at an obscenely slow rate, like 1% for thousands of strikes. Another elusive skill is knowledge of mushrooms. Before mushroom gathering was recoded, the skill would raise at a reasonable rate. The new code makes mushroom gathering more convinient, but the lbd seems to have vanished (CORRECTION: I just got my first % while writing this, so apparently it does work, but at a severely tuned rate).

So, I'm starting this thread hoping for hints and suggestion on lbd skills.
I hear rumour floating around that Wisdom affects the learning rate, althouh I can't seem to confirm it in any documentation. I was also wondering if PDF blessing hastened learning improved lbd learning rate along with the exp rate.
And, of course, hints on particular skills that prove to be a pain in the ass (like the three I mentioned above).

Well, at least water priests (and _sec) have a spell that is supposed to help lbd gain, either directly through wisdom gain or lbdgain bonus.

There's a scroll in the game that does aid lbdgain rate, but when I used it I got like +14 craftsmanship very rapidly through fletching, but then all lbd gain stopped completely. Couldn't even raise consider. And its effects hadn't worn off yet, so there's something tricksy with it.

A rumour has it that a certain room in the game can also boost up lbd rate.

As for hastened learning, I'm not sure. If you can afford to take it, do so.

Yeah, I've heard that (INT and) WIS help(s) gaining lbd skills, but I wonder, does the statcost of them for your race matter as well?

As for my own observations regarding hard-to-gain lbd skills:

Pathfinding seems to only raise when you're riding a mount in the wilderness.

Skinning has become a lot slower to gain when we had the artisans introduced. It used to be (in 2001) almost as easy to gain as swimming is today, but it does rise.

Fine hand coordination is a pain in the ass to gain, since leatherworking seems to fail a lot.

Melee rises through being in front row in combat, not through hitting. So deftanks can capitalize on that. Chickens make a good training opponent, maybe other deftanks as well?

Fishing skill may be easier to gain if you use fish traps.

Has shadow strike been tuned? I thought it rised pretty well. (Depends on playing style, though. Simple stab and wait won't give you any opportunities to use it, though)

Army-related lbd skills 'leadership' and 'military discipline' are a bit tricky. You gain discipline 1% for each level, and it lbds only when you're being ordered around by an officer. Leadership works the other way around and rewards players who get it up to 100%. So, to maximize discipline, you should get a slave officer to boss you around, since you cannot get it when soloing.

But yeah, lbds are <3. You refrain from madz xpz to work them up to gain measly 1-30+% extra skill to your next reinc, then you play a few weeks with those bonuses (or lbd them on top of your bg bonuses) and reinc again. A vicious cycle it is.

_________________Internet tough guy

Icesus is not just my life - it's the lack of it.

goderic
Posts: 87

Posted:
Thu Oct 30, 2008 19:44 pm

Can't confirm this, but I suspect earning the library card and using it might help too.
The skill I never seem to raise by doing is 'knowledge of trees'.

daicSupporting Member 2015
Posts: 60
Location: Vaasa, Finland

Posted:
Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:01 pm

If that knowledge of trees is the skill you need to advance in loggerguild, it took me 3 days to reach 60%. Protipz, watch movies while doing some lumberjacking.

dont know if it is true or not, but i have "proven" it to my satisfaction that there are Lbd "blocks".

Example: i have numerous times dont crafting and gotten, say one per five min. then i will get nothing for around 30 min, then i will start getting it at one per five again.

This also happens in other lbd skills, for example dragonscale expertiese. Before Belannaer fixed it a bit, i would get around one per ten-twenty gloves made. then at one point i made over seventy-five to one hundred gloves in a row and got NOTHING.

So if you dont get a lbd for a while, you are just in a block. keep at it and when it breaks, it often gives lots or at least two-three singles in a row.

khadeSupporting Member 2013

Posts: 367

Posted:
Tue Nov 04, 2008 21:41 pm

I can't verify this, but I think that one of the wilder masteries actually increases the likelyhood of getting lbd. At least, I get them frequently as a wilder. Any chance of a wizard verifying or denying this?

cezarSupporting Member 2010

Posts: 33

Posted:
Wed May 06, 2009 12:16 pm

I figured I'd bump up this old thread.

So far in my experience melee skill proven to be very elusive. Its very hard to lbd in a fighter-type guild, because you need it to advance levels, and you're stuck at low levels trying to learn the damn thing. Perhaps, the ideal solution in not to try to learn it from scratch, but make some levels first after all, and perhaps try to learn it from 40 to max.

Doublekick. I swear there is a bug in lbd code. It is a common practice for second tier skills to have lbd cap tied in to the primary skill. For example, mastery of throwing lbd caps out at throwing - 30%. But my doublekick is permanently stuck at 4%, while I already maxed kick. I'm going to make a wild guess that when the lbd cap code was written, the coder accidently divided kick%% by 20, instead of substracting 20. I hope a wizard reads this to check on my theory.

With some skills I also wonder if the initial 1% is required before you can learn more. I played some caster types with plently of solo and, hence, front-row action. I never got any melee. I'm assuming that the way the code works, you need at least 1% to build on to further improve melee just by fighting. The same logic probably applies to many other skills. If someone ever got bargaining lbd, without having any from the merchants guild in the first place, let me know.

water priests can lbd melee without any trouble, since they don't seem to need melee at all, they are an effective way to lbd it. and i've learned bargaining without merchant help, you have to buy stuff, supposedly

cezarSupporting Member 2010

Posts: 33

Posted:
Thu May 07, 2009 08:00 am

Ok, some more random musings.

Without access to the code its hard to figure out how things work exactly. I speculate that the lbd check if performed when you succeed in the skill, even if it is currently at 0%. So, camping, for example, can be learned from 0. The skill is actually activated through a command, so you don't need to know it. And you always succeed in making a camp (even if 'camp' is a generous description at low percetage).

On the other hand, I never heard of anyone getting his first % of pathfinding just by walking around. Although the skill is allegedly LBD, there is no endurance saving to trigger the lbd check. But pathfinding is learnable when riding a mount - for same reasons.

Bargaining - I bought plently of skins and wyvernscales from the furshop, and never got any lbd. Again, wild speculation - no discount to trigger the skillcheck. Khade, I'm going to guess that you had positive reputation when you learned bargaining. Next reinc I will try lbding bargaining again, this time with good reputation and +cha eqset

khadeSupporting Member 2013

Posts: 367

Posted:
Fri May 15, 2009 06:48 am

actually it was in the alchemist guild, with neutral rep in atherton, very likely completely luck there.

kravenSupporting Member 2012

Posts: 93
Location: Finland

Posted:
Wed May 27, 2009 13:05 pm

or it maybe totally random,atleast "secrets of assassination" seem to raise several times in a hour,and then dont raise at all for a day...